Movie City Indie Archive for October, 2011

Wim Wenders Remembers Editor Peter Przygodda

October 2, 2011 Peter Przygodda died.

Peter and I went back for 42 years.
He edited my student film, „Summer in the City“ in 1969
and since then we worked on more than 20 feature films together.

Even after all these years and all this lifetime spent together,
I never detected a system or a method in his work.
Peter didn’t feel that any two films should be edited the same way.
His approach was that of total immersion.
After a while he would know by heart
each second of the material that was shot,
outtakes just as well as selected shots,
and he always ended up knowing the footage better than myself.

He believed that his job was the un-covering of the film
from among everything that was shot.
„It’s hidden in there, I only help finding it“, he said.
„Once you find it, the film edits itself.
My job only consists in cutting more and more away.“
He was a modest man…

The importance of his input into my films is enormous.
I really owe nobody else so much than Peter.
Well, him and Robbie Müller, my long-time cameraman.
These two really helped me
finding my own hand-writing as a filmmaker,
and staying on course.

Peter edited a huge amount of German Cinema for four decades.
He worked with Hans W. Geißendörfer, Volker Schöndorff,
Reinhard Hauff, Thomas Schamoni, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg,
Klaus Lemke, Uli Edel, Peter Handke, Mischka Popp
and Thomas Bergmann and many others.
Peter also taught editing at the Munich film academy.
He had a particular love for the documentary.

Peter was born in Berlin in 1941.
He had memories of nights in bombing shelters,
and then of actively taking part in the black market
as a young boy, after the war.
He had the dry humour of a true Berliner,
and the unique accent that came with it.
More often than Peter I called him „Keule“.
Or „Elvis“ sometimes.

Peter was interested in everything.
He was one of the last universally-read private scholars…

[More at Wenders’ personal site.]

Lubbock, Texas’ Monday Haboob Malfunction (2’19”)

David Puttnam On “Educating for the Digital Society” (28’52”)

“Wisdom has become something of an old-fashioned concept.”

Checking in with WINNEBAGO MAN Jack Rebney (3’37” vid)

Panahi-Rasoulof Appeals Rulings

HRANA News Agency – The Appeals Court of Tehran Province has issued its rulings for Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof who were sentenced to prison terms and bans by the lower court. Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are two Iranian filmmakers and directors charged with acting against national security and propaganda against the regime.

According to a report by Iran Newspaper, Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof previously appeared in the 26th Branch of the Revolutionary Court with Judge Mir Abbasi presiding over the trial. During the proceedings, a representative of Tehran’s Prosecutor read the charges against the accused and said, “Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof have been convicted of acting against national security through social activities and conspiracy to disturb public peace and safety and the crime of propaganda against the regime.”

Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof intended to make a film titled “Farda” in order to illustrate the current social and cultural conditions in the Islamic society.

The representative of Tehran’s Prosecutor asked the court to punish the two filmmakers based on sections 500 and 610 of the Islamic Penal Code. Following the prosecutor’s statements, Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof presented their written answers to the judge’s questions, and attorneys defended their clients.

At the end, citing all the evidence presented to the court, Judge Mir Abbasi sentenced both defendants to 6 years in prison and banned Jafar Panahi from making or directing any films, writing any movie scripts, conducting any forms of verbal or written interviews with domestic or foreign media and leaving the country for a period of 20 years. According to the court’s ruling, Jafar Panahi is allowed to leave the country for pilgrimage to Mecca or for seeking necessary medical care after posting bail.

Following the defendants’ objections and requests for appeal, their cases were reviewed by the 54th branch of the Appeals Court in Tehran Province. The Appeals Court then issued its final rulings upholding the verdict against Jafar Panahi but reducing Mohammad Rasoulof’s prison sentence to one year. [Via.]

Postering ROCK-‘M’-SOCK-‘M-THE CHAMP in Nippon

[Via IMP Awards.]

Postering CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE LOOK

[Via designer Sam Smith.]

The “Mermaid” Scene From RUM DIARY

Amid the agreeable badinage, insult and swear…

The Ira Glass Sex Tape

Hunter S. Thompson And THE RUM DIARY BACKSTORY

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Scorsese On Starting Meditation

Postering HAYWIRE Some More

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MATRIX Evolutions: Remixing The Wachowskis’ Inspirations

Gerardo Naranjo, MISS BALA, Chicago International Film Festival

Naranjo

Movie City Indie

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon